


The Many Names Of Octavia Blake

by olivemartini



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Octavia, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Hurt, Metaphors, Romance, Violence, a bit of language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: When she was little, her name was O, like the letter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing in honor of season 4 about to start.  
> Comments are appreciated!

At first, her name was O, like the letter.

That was what they called her, because they were either too busy or in too much of a hurry to waste time on extra syllables, and she grew up hearing it.  She liked it, because normally hearing the word meant that her brother had finally come home to be with her, finally, and she got to come out from underneath the floorboards.  She got tired of hiding underneath there, all alone in the darkness with only a blanket and a doll for company, not even able to make a sound to break up the deafening silence.  Octavia was always a little bit afraid when she was down there, but then she heard the door slam and the pounding of feet overhead, and there would be Bellamy, finally home.

Bellamy meant a light to break up the darkness, the first breath of fresh air she had all day, and a hand reaching down to pull her to her feet.  Bellamy meant safety, and happiness, and the fact that it was almost time for her mother to come home.  And with it, she got to hear the only voices she had ever heard, seen the only faces she thought she would ever see.  Bellamy said her name a lot then, like he was reminding them both that she was real, saying things like  _O, we can play, but we have to stay quiet_ or  _O, mom's going to tell us a story before bed tonight_ or  _someday, O, you'll get to see the best this world has to offer, I'll make sure of it._

Her mother was still coming home in those days, still calling her O, running a hand through her hair and greeting her with a tired smile on her face.  Her mom smelled like the chemicals she worked with, so different from Bellamy.  It was a harsh smell, but Octavia didn't care, just buried her face in her mother's stomach and told her how much she loved her.  And then there was food, which Octavia always got a bigger portion of even though she didn't know it.  And later came stories, magical tales about the earth and what lived there, along with the gods and heroes that used to inhabit the ground long, long ago.  

(Her favorite goddess was Aphrodite, because she was the goddess of love, and all Octavia could dream about was a prince to come and rescue her.)

* * *

 

Then her name became Octavia.

Bellamy still called her O, sure, but it was with a lot more worry and anger, like he had the weight of the world bearing down on his back and no one to share it with.  They don't have time to play anymore, but sometimes he tells her the things he learned at school that day, or the people he meets, or what the jerk of a guard stationed at the end of the hall told his friends.  He tells her stories about the ark, too, describing it in as much detail as he can, trying to give her the tools to paint a picture in her head.  It's the closest she will ever get to the real thing, and they have both grown old enough to know it.  He still calls her O, true, but now it is accompanied with words like  _you can have my dinner, O_ because there was no longer enough food for the three of them, or  _I can't stay any longer, O_ or  _O, you have to get back into the box now._ He has become her whole world, and even though his universe has grown a lot bigger than hers, Octavia is still sure she is at the center of it.

Her mother is the one who calls her Octavia.  She's not sure when it changed.  She didn't notice when her mother started saying it with more anger and resentment and annoyance.  Octavia thought it had something to do with the fact that she was getting bigger and older, needing more food and more room and getting harder to hide, and her mother was beginning to realize that she was burden they would all be stuck with for the rest of their lives.  Octavia doesn't run to her mother anymore.  She doesn't hug her and breath in her scent like it was the best perfume in the world, because now her breath always reeks of the bootlegged alcohol she drinks with the woman two doors down (Matthews?  Murphy?).  Her mother is never home much anymore, anyways, and when she is she always looks like she's been crying.  Eventually, she runs out of tears and just takes it all out on Octavia instead.  

It doesn't matter, though, because Bellamy says that as soon as he becomes a guard and gets his own place, she will live with him.  And he'll be able to protect her better, call in favors until they never check his room and they get extra food and Octavia will never have to hide again.

(Her mother doesn't tell her stories anymore, but that's okay, because she knows them well enough to whisper them to herself, over and over in the darkness.  Right now her favorite is of Athena and Arachne.  She's not sure why,  but it might be the fact that a little spider has taken the corner of her floorboard box as her home.)

* * *

People don't call her anything, anymore.

She's not Octavia anymore, she is just a string of numbers that are inscribed on her metal tracking bracelet.  Her cell mate calls her a bitch, spitting the word out at her on the first day, grabbing her by the hair and throwing her into the wall.  Octavia doesn't know what the words mean, but she knows it isn't good.  The other prisoners and the guards and the other miscellaneous people who catch sight of her whisper something about her being the girl under the floor boards, the one that was hidden for sixteen years, almost a record.  She is a freak and a stranger and an outside and all other kinds of miserable words that she can't bring herself to think about without wanting to cry.  Her brother, the only person who ever made her feel like home, still calls her O, but he can only see her once a month.  She lives and dies for these visits, because as much as she wants to see her brother, he always shows up in a janitor's uniform and it makes her want to scream, to know that he had all his dreams broken to pieces because he tried to keep her safe.  He could have been something wonderful, but he chose her over himself, again and again and still would today.  Octavia's mother doesn't call her anything, because she got ripped out into the sky to die among the stars, but Octavia imagines it would not be anything good.

The guards always leer at her when they pass her by.  She wondered why, and then one of them finally told her why, explaining the real reason why her mother stopped calling her O and started drinking and suddenly decided keeping the illegal child hadn't been worth it.  She learned what the looks from the guards meant, and how her mother always knew when the supposedly random searches were happening.  Octavia went back to her cell and cried that day, cried for herself and for her mother and the way they had broke themselves to help the other and wished it didn't have to be that way.  And when her cell mate grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to make her shut up, Octavia screamed and pushed and punched and began to finally let herself feel all the anger and pain inside of her, and learned that it felt so much better to scream than to be silent.  And when the guard offered to make the same arrangement with her as they had with her mother, she kicked his teeth in. It got her a collection of bruises and a month in solitary as repayment, but none of them ever looked at her with anything more than annoyance again.

The other kids didn't talk to her much.  She didn't mind.  She had her stories, and she had the visits from her brother to look forward too, and Octavia liked to think she was better than them anyways.  She couldn't understand it, why they had traded in the freedoms they had for a moment of fun or an extra portion of rations.

Sometimes, she thinks she was lucky, growing up in the dark.  The light just showed her how ugly things were.

(She still knows her stories, and sometimes Bellamy comes and tells her a new one he's learned.  Her favorite now is of Icarus and his wings, the boy who was trapped and finally got the chance to fly.  He'd been so glad to finally feel the sun on his skin that he flew too close, tempted by everything he never had right in front of his eyes.  His feathers melted, and he traded his old misery for a much worse fate.  Octavia knows how it feels, to want to feel something so badly that you trade it for everything good you've ever known.)

* * *

Octavia is a lot of things now.

She's the girl under the floor boards, sure.  

But now she's also the first one to step on the ground, who screams the word bitches with reckless abandon and knows exactly what it means.  She's the girl with the scary older brother, which allows her to sleep where she wants and hang around with who she wants and have her pick of the meager food they get.  The boys whisper about her, calling her the pretty one, the hot one, and she finds that she likes it, even if the dorky Jasper smiles at her more than Finn does, but that's alright.  Bellamy still calls her O, and she doesn't think that's about to change anytime soon.

She gets to breath air.  She gets to feel the sun on her shoulders and stand out in the rain for the first time, the cold of it stinging her skin.  She catches butterflies on her fingertips and brushes her hands across leaves and dives into the river.  (Okay, there was a large monster in that one, so maybe that wasn't good, but everything else was.)  She kisses boys, and laughs with girls, and her brother tries to teach her how to throw a knife, even if she's bad at it.  She rips that bracelet off her arm, because fuck the ark and everyone on it, that was never her home anyways, and Octavia thinks maybe here could be better.  Octavia learns what its like to eat meat fresh from the fire, and learns to understand why her mother loved the burn of whiskey so much, and become familiar with the weight of her brother's arm around her shoulder once more.  The anger and is still there, but it has quieted, the fire tamed to just the softness of candlelight.  It's enough to keep her warm, but she forgets the feel of the burn.

(She does not have time for stories, but if she did, Icarus would still be her favorite.  This, right here, must be like how Icarus felt when he first jumped from the window and felt the wind gather underneath his wings, caught between free fall and flying and being able to taste freedom on his tongue.)

* * *

She's got a new name now.

It falls from Lincoln's lips one night, a word spoken in a foreign tongue that she soon comes to learn means my love, and the feeling behind it hits her in the chest with enough force that it almost hurts.  It is such a strange feeling, to be loved by the one you love, and the power of it makes something inside of her come alive.

She hears it again, and again, and again.  Its whispered into her ear, mumbled into her skin, left hanging in the air as she leaves to go to back to the drop ship.  This thing is dangerous and forbidden and secretive, but that's fine with her, because she has lived her entire life as something that wasn't allowed, and this feels more natural to her than any normal relationship could. They give away pieces of each other, explaining their child hoods and their dreams and their fears, and as time goes on, they teach other what it means to be good to one another.  She knows every glowing piece of his soul, and he knows every broken edge hers, and is beginning to smooth them down to where they can barely hurt anyone anymore.  He gives her drawings, and she tells him all the stories they know, exchanging words and kisses and tales by the light of the fire.  

Lincoln felt like coming home in a way that no one else ever did.  She has never belonged anywhere, and meeting him, with the arms that hold her in the night and the voice that tells her wonderful things and the eyes that look at her like she is his only concern in the world. she thinks that she could learn.  It is amazing to her, how they fit together, and yet it doesn't surprise her at all.  The fire has started up again, but it's a different kind, and even though it is threatening to consume her, it feels so good she thinks she might let it.

(Octavia remembers her love for the stories again.  Her new favorite is of Persephone and Hades, the original one, where Persephone stumbles into the underworld and finds the beauty in the darkened chaos, and decides that she would like very much to stay, even though the people in her old life want nothing more than to pull her back.)

* * *

She is Indra's second, and it is the only thing that matters.  

 

 

It's the only thing she is allowed to be.  What Indra demands of her becomes first, and Octavia must obey.  Indra's word is law, and must be put before anything else in her life, before the need to breathe or eat or drink or sleep, before Bellamy or Lincoln or any of the friends she had made.  It's hard, to turn away from them and to put herself through the hell that is being demanded of her, but she will do it.  She will do it because the small part of the grounder life she has seen has let her see a glimpse of somewhere she can belong, and she will do whatever it takes to make it her own.

Indra says that this will not last long.  Soon, she says, Octavia will be a warrior.  Right now she is only a piece of metal waiting to be made into a sword, and must be tempered in fire before she can be used as a weapon.  

* * *

Octavia is no longer just Octavia.  She is now Octavia com Sky Cru, a warrior for the commander's army, a grounder that even Indra can be proud of.

She has learned how to fight, with words and fists and swords.  She can throw knives and spears and shoot a bow, can start fires and run for miles and use every part of her body like a weapon.  Indra has taught her how to fight men three times her size, and to take down fighters that are even scrappier than her.  Octavia has grown used to the feeling of skin against skin and bone against bone, learned to live for the sound of metal clashing against metal.  There are war drums thrumming in her veins, and when the call to defend the clans and take down the mountain comes, Octavia follows Indra into battle without a thought.

It is slow going, but soon, she becomes one of them.  Not one of them, but the best of the initiates, the one they are looking towards for leadership.  Bellamy can't protect her from everything anymore, but it's become apparent to everyone that she doesn't need it.  She can hear them whispering as she walks by ever since the bombing:  _Octavia com Sky-cru, the warrior, the hero._ Lincoln looks at her with something caught between worry and pride, but she can't bother to think of what this might mean to him, because she is finally one of them, and there is people to protect and fight for.  So she trains and trains and trains, fighting and sharpening her sword and hunting, waiting for the moment when she will be called into battle again.

They attack the mountain, and Octavia is walking in side by side with Indra, because she is her second and it is where she belongs.  (God, belongs, its so good to know what that word feels like.)  When the time comes, she raises her sword and lets out a war cry with the rest of them, feeling the scream rip something loose in her chest, and the fire rages.  It's been there for so long, suffocated and kept under control, but now she has found somewhere that this lust for revenge is not only accepted, but encouraged.  So she turns her rage toward the mountain, even though in the back of her mind she has a list of people she wants to make pay.  She is ready, but then Lexa turns back and Clarke doesn't understand why and even though her new home is filtering away and going back to their homes, her brother, her  _people,_ are still in there.  

Indra tells her to leave.  She doesn't.  

Octavia is not her second anymore, and it hurts as bad as getting her heart ripped out, but Octavia has learned how to fight.  She knows where her loyalties lie, and she knows that she cannot leave Bellamy to die. She may have finally felt like she belonged with the grounders, but he was her first home.  

She walks into the mountain, and Clarke follows, and Mt. Weather is brought to its knees.

(A legend walked out of that mountain that day, one that put all the old stories of the gods and heroes to shame.  That was the birth of wan-heda, a goddess in her own right.)

* * *

Octavia isn't sure what she is now.

She's a warrior without a fight.  She's someones love.  She's a sister and a friend.  And as much as she tries not to be, she's still the girl that was hidden under the floor, but no one holds that against her anymore.

But she doesn't fit anywhere again.  If anything, she belongs with grounders, but she has already made a home with Lincoln, and the two no longer go together.  So she stays, sleeping in the trees just feet away from the hunk of metal she always hated, fighting trees with her sword and leaving the compound every chance she gets.  She goes to visit Indra, carrying messages between her and Kane, and finds people to train with every chance she gets.  She tries to help Bellamy forget about Clarke, the great Wan-heda who couldn't handle the burden of the souls that she gathered, and finds that he loved her more than anyone realized.  It hits her with a pang, knowing that Bellamy isn't hers to keep anymore, but she finds she doesn't mind sharing.  

(She likes the story of Medusa now.  She wishes she was her, and was able to turn people to stone with just a glance.  She wants to make them all feel as empty as she does.)

* * *

 

All of a sudden, she is a traitor and a rebel.  

She is neither grounder or one of the sky people.

She cannot recognize her brother.

She is still Lincoln's love, but he is imprisoned and the ark is fighting within itself, and people are dying.

Octavia doesn't want to be, but she is still one of the 100, and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility.  They are an army in their own right, and every army needs a a leader to follow.  So when all else fails, she sets out to find Clarke and bring her back home. 

Fighting is the only thing she's good at.

(Is this why she liked the stories of gods and heroes so much?  Like, maybe she wanted something to fight for so bad she just used their stories until she could become a hero on her own?)

* * *

There is nothing left.

There's an image playing over and over again in her head, and she wants to tell herself not to look, that it's going to be horrible, but then she feels selfish even for thinking it, because Lincoln deserves for someone to go through this pain for him, to watch and bear witness to the injustice that the world has laid at his feet.  The injustice he accepts because he considers it his burden to bear, because others come first for him and always have, and he must protect his people, even if that means leaving Octavia alone.  So she watches him be led out from the guards, rips herself from Kane's arms to stumble closer, like that might somehow make a difference.  She does nothing but watch as he drops to his knees in a puddle of mud and has a gun pressed to his head, hears Pike make his promise, listens to Lincoln's last words.  The gun goes off then, and there is blood, a spray of it, and he falls with a finality that hurts so much more than any physical pain ever could.  Octavia lets herself fall into Kane's arms for moment, crumbles and dissolves and shakes with the grief.  

They don't have time for tears.  They do no good for anyone.  Octavia lets herself fall apart and then she pulls herself back together again in a way that feels broken and twisted and  _wrong_ , but it is enough to let her put one foot in front of the other, and she knows that without Lincoln she won't truly be whole again. 

When they get to the cave, Bellamy is chained and waiting.  Seeing him sets a spark to the fire that has been waiting in her all along, the one that Lincoln's calm always managed to tame, and now there is nothing there to stop it.  She lets her fists rain down on him, and he doesn't raise a hand to stop her, tells the other to stay back.  She wishes he wouldn't, wishes she had an excuse to turn on them, too, because they all hurt her in some way or another and she suddenly wants to make everything pay for every ounce of pain she's ever felt, from the smallest paper cuts to the stab wounds.  She kicks and she punches and the blood falls to the ground between them, the blood they share, but it is still never enough because all the blood she could see was Lincoln's.  She closes her eyes at the end of it, trying to stop herself. but then she sees the gun pressed to his head again and suddenly nothing will ever mend the hole this has put in her, but at least she can make him pay.  She thinks of the wasteland of warriors that he slaughtered, of the broken Indra, of the way Lincoln was killed when he deserved to fall in battle, and decides that Bellamy deserves all the pain she can give him and more.

She's done, finally, and she steps back to see a broken man.  There is blood staining his teeth and his lips and flowing from his nose, and she knows that she broke a rib, but it doesn't help.  Octavia hates him, suddenly, and the feeling is threatening to burn her up from the inside out, so she hits him one last time to save herself from her own flames.  He's crying, as if he has the right, when it should be her broken down and sobbing.  "You did this."  She spits the words out at his feet and wishes she had more to say.   _You did this to Lincoln.  To those people you killed.  To me.  Out of everyone, how could you do this to me?_

There cave is quiet. No one knows what to say to her.  There is nothing to say.  They have all lost people, she supposes, have done things that they regret. But they are not like her.  They have all known what it is liked to be loved, to be given a home that you are certain of.  That was something she has been robbed of, and she is not sure why it has taken her this long to realize how broken this has left her.  

She is no one's love.  She has no where left to go.  Octavia is beginning to realize that she cannot confuse a person with a home again.  No matter how strong they are, no person can shelter you from the storm.  You just have to be as prepared for it as you can on your own.

As she walks away, someone is still calling her O, but it is not her brother.

* * *

She's a bit numb, but she's still angry.  

 

 

It's a bit of a joke, that the fate of the world rests of a group of people as broken as them.  Monty had to kill his mother.  Jasper's been a suicidal alcoholic ever since Maya died, and he's not getting any better.  Bellamy's walking around like a kicked puppy.  Clarke looks sad when she thinks no one can see her, clinging to that stupid chip like it might somehow bring Lexa back.  And Raven's apparently possesed by someone from outer space.

But it's alright, because it's something to do, an as long as she's moving she doesn't have to see that gun pressed to Lincoln's head.  They all make their way to Luna's, each step like a stab wound, and she's reminded of the happily ever after she never got.  But then it appears that she never was going to get it anyways, because Luna says that Lincoln would never have brought her here, that she was too full of hate to ever exist here.  The worst part is she was right, because Octavia is in so much pain she can barely think straight and the only way she can think of to make it go to way is to make other people bleed, and suddenly she wants to leave the ship as soon as she can before this thing poisons everyone here.

It's that, she thinks, that makes the flames break loose.  She thinks of the little girl that used to huddle in the cold and wish for things to be different, and she wants to tell her that it never gets better, that she should just stay in the box, because there are things so much scarier than darkness.  She thinks of her mother, and understands how awful you have to feel to lose the will to cry, and remembers the brother that used to give up his dinner so she could have a chance at feeling full.  She tries to remember what it felt like to be the girl that ran off the dropship first, who caught butterflies and stood out in the rain even though it soaked her to the bone.  She tried and tried and tried, but all that was left was pain, because mixed up in all those memories are pain and hurt and fear and the feeling of it not being fair, so they are burned and left her even angrier than before.  The fire is raging, and there is not enough water in the world for it to be put out.

Octavia lets herself burn, and finds that she likes the pain.  She burns as they fight their way to the capitol, and as they fight up the elevator shaft.  She finds Indra again, and it doesn't go away, just flares up brighter when she saw what her old mentor had become, and she throws her to the ground like its nothing, because it did take nothing, and Octavia wonders why it didn't make her feel anything at all.  But Indra follows her, because there is something in Octavia now that makes people want to follow her.  

She fights.  She fights and fights and Bellamy becomes her brother again, but it doesn't help heal her.  Her arms ache, but she just swings the sword harder, and her shoes are soaked with the blood of the people that she killed.  The world is stained red, and she finds she likes it that way, cutting people to the bone and tossing them off to the side, ready for the next.  Somewhere along the line, she cries, sobbing for the first time, but she just fights harder, cuts deeper, swings faster, because she is the flame and they will all burn for daring to come near her.  Her anger is something that is all consuming.

It's over, as most things have to be, and there is Pike, standing beside her and looking like they have finally come to stand on common ground.  Octavia looks at Clarke, who is crying, and at Bellamy, who is still family despite everything, and at Murphy, who is hugging some girl and looks at peace for the first time in his life even if his hands are covered in Emori's blood.  She intends to let things be, to run off into the woods like Clarke did and never come back, but she makes the mistake of closing her eyes and saw Lincoln's dead body imprinted on her eye lids.

The sword moves on its own, but it is her weight that drives it into him, only stopping when the hilt hits his chest.  His eyes widen, and movement stops, and people are staring at her.  "Blood must have blood."  The words are hissed, and she knows that it is not what Lexa wants, and Clarke will not approve, but she does not feel guilty.  For a moment, she feels the fire die.

(She remembers the pheonix, who is born of the ashes of what it used to be and grows to be better then its past self.  It is a creature of fire, and it will burn and burn and burn until there is nothing left.)

* * *

They all know her name now, and they fear it.

She is not O, girl stuck under the floor boards.  She is not Octavia of the 100.  She is not Octavia com ski-cru, Lincoln's love.  She is no longer Indra's second.

She is sky-ripper, death from above. 

The first rule Indra had taught her was jes druis den.   _Blood must have blood._ It was the mantra of her people, and now Octavia repeats it to herself with every step she takes.  

Blood must have blood, and she couldn't spill enough to make up for Lincoln's murder if she had a thousand years.

She will not stop until the rivers of the world run red.

(She does not have time for stories anymore.  Those are only for little girls dreaming of something they can't have.

Octavia's become a legend of her own, now, anyways.  She's the angel of death, the sword in the wan-heda's hand.  She is the girl made of fire, and her flames will not die until the world has been reduced to ashes.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @alwaysscripturient


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